On Flower Bai and Borrowing Bai

The IPO of Ant Group was suspended for one year, and a series of changes have taken place in its star products, such as flower buds and borrowing buds. With the change of social situation and consumers' concept, we must rethink our own positioning and business development boundaries, and take it as our responsibility to fully guide rational lending and reduce personal debt leverage.

From "buy buy Buy" to "Rational Consumption"

One year after the suspension of Ant IPO, Huayuan ushered in another "Double Eleven". Different from previous years, some consumers found that Huayuan did not issue the "Double Eleven" temporary quota this year. In this promotion season, the temporary quota is an additional motivation for many consumers to "stock up" and an important marketing tool for the "Double Eleven" GMV (total transaction volume) to hit record highs.

Double 1 1 launched a function called "bill assistant" in the first half of the year. This function encourages users to set a monthly budget amount (which will not be higher than the current total amount), and based on this, sends users a strong reminder of consumption progress. In the payment confirmation interface, consumers who exceed the set budget will also see the reminder of "excessive consumption".

The effect of this function is remarkable, because nothing can dispel the desire to spend more than the news that "you have overspent". According to the data provided by Bai, the bill amount of users who use "bill assistant" has dropped by 5% on average.

This is not the first time that Huayuan and Bai Jie have launched similar product functions. On June 5438+ 10 this year, the function of "rational consumption, self-management" appeared on the home page. Through it, users can quickly reduce the quota, adjust the payment order, and even close the flower shop and borrow with one click. The interface has always been minimalist, prompting users to borrow rationally in a prominent position on the page, and showing the annualized interest rate more prominently.

Baihua is still gradually reducing the number of young users. In the same year, a large number of young users aged 20-30 found that their quota was reduced to several thousand yuan or even less than 3,000 yuan. This has also been confirmed by Ant Group, and the official response indicates that it is really reassessing and adjusting the quota of young users and advocating rational consumption.

However, consumers' opinions on emission reduction measures are polarized. From the perspective of financial supervision policies and general social sentiment, it is imperative to reduce personal debt leverage and guide more rational consumption behavior under the background of increasing economic uncertainty, while leading products such as flower buds and borrowing buds have demonstration effects.

However, on social media, many users complained that they had worked hard to "save" the quota for several years and were "dropped" at once. "I repay the loan on time every month. Why do you want to give me a reduction? " Some users angrily said that they would "explode Alipay customer service calls".

Within ants, these adjustments were debated before landing. Reducing the volume means losing the business scale and the number of users, which largely determines the chassis and profitability of the product. Some employees questioned that this was "self-defeating martial arts".

Times have changed.

According to the prospectus disclosed by Ant Group in 2020, the total number of users of flower buds and borrowing buds exceeds 500 million. Serving as many long-tail users as possible is the starting point for the birth of Bai Hua and Jiebai, and it has indeed proved to be successful.

20 15 When Huayuan was founded, the GDP growth rate of China exceeded 7% for many years. It is a common choice to choose credit services to improve living standards and hedge against inflation. However, at that time, the number of credit cards per capita in China was only 0.29, and the availability of consumer finance was very low.

On the other hand, consumer credit was regarded as one of the driving forces of national economic development at that time.

1997 after the Asian financial crisis, in order to solve the deflation problem, the central bank issued the "Guiding Opinions on Developing Personal Consumer Credit Business" on 1999, which is regarded as the origin of consumer credit in China. Ten years later, under the global financial crisis, in 2009, the central bank officially launched a pilot project to set up consumer finance companies to expand domestic demand and improve overcapacity.

From 20 15 to 20 17, the economic upward trend is obvious, and the social confidence in economic development reaches a high point. This optimism also contributed to the rapid development of Bai Hua in the first two or three years. People are full of confidence in future development and income growth.

For this change, the garden and the borrower obviously did not foresee it in advance, and even the response was lagging behind. Yin Zhentao, director of the Financial Technology Laboratory of the Institute of Finance of China Academy of Social Sciences, believes that these changes are essentially industry problems, which are reflected in the appropriateness of financial services and the real economic origin of financial services, despite the background of economic situation and social sentiment.

Reflect on the past

In June 5438 +2020 10, an advertisement in Bai Hua caused public outcry. In the advertisement, the 37-year-old captain of the construction team is celebrating his daughter's birthday with the title "A family of three". After careful calculation, my daughter's birthday should be ok. "

Some netizens in Zhihu expressed their dissatisfaction with a joke: "The last person who lent money to his daughter for her birthday was Yang Bailao." This passage has been widely forwarded, and many netizens think that this is the overdraft consumption of poor families induced by capital.

And a month later, more turbulent public opinion appeared. After ants suspended IPO, they accused Bai Hua of borrowing money as "usury". Overnight, a thousand people pointed out.

For these accusations, the internal employees of ants were initially confused. A flower garden employee revealed that the story of the construction team captain was based on real user cases, and originally wanted to convey the small fortune of the flower garden accompanying life.

What puzzles the company even more is the accusation of "usury". Flower buds, like credit cards, have a one-month interest-free period, and most users have never paid interest. The lowest repayment rate in Bai Hua is even lower than that of credit cards because only installment or overdue interest is charged, and no revolving interest is charged. The interest rate of borrowing money is also at a low level among similar products.

But soon, they realized that grievances could not solve the problem. "If there is a huge dislocation between our own perception and the perception of the outside world, then we must ignore some problems, which is very dangerous." An employee of Huayuan revealed to Late that while sorting out the rectification plan, Huayuan internally reviewed and reflected on the development of the past few years.

The ant team began to realize that in the rapid development of the past few years, some problems have indeed been ignored, such as the appropriateness of services and the transmission of product concepts. Tools are innocent, but products can be valuable. The number of users of flower buds and loans is huge, including

Young users and low-income groups. Their knowledge and literacy in financial consumption have just begun. Flower buds and borrowing buds must have rational value guidance for users. "Products should conform to business logic, but also consider social ethics, and be responsible for users from the perspective of their long-term personal development, not just to meet their current consumption needs. If this value is missing, it will inevitably expose problems, be challenged or even abandoned one day. " A borrowed employee said.

Obviously, advocating rational consumption and rational credit should be the next values of spending money and borrowing money.

Duan Weiwen, director of the Philosophy of Science and Technology Research Office of the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, believes that as a benchmark of consumer credit, it may not be enough to spend money and borrow money alone. In the face of the new challenges to social trust in the digital age, we should also devote ourselves to the trust reconstruction at the industry level, that is, financial technology enterprises should not only get the government's regulatory license, but also get the "social license", that is, social trust. The acquisition of social trust is undoubtedly the premise of the benign development of industry ecology. The consumer credit industry is mixed, and chaos such as "campus loans" and "7 14 anti-aircraft guns" will not be removed, and flower buds and loan buds will also become "back-pot men" of illegal online loans. The accusation of "usury" more or less reveals the urgency of establishing social trust to correct the industry ecology.

The change has just begun.

The bigger change is behind.

165438+1On October 24th, Bai Hua announced the launch of brand isolation. In addition, 165438+ Jiebai announced brand isolation at the beginning of 10, making Huabai and Jiebai the exclusive products of Chongqing Ant Consumer Finance Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Ant Consumer Finance"). Consumer credit services provided by banks and other financial institutions will be updated to "credit purchase" and "credit loan". After brand isolation, Bai Hua will focus on small and medium-sized services.

The official did not disclose the scope of the small flowers. However, according to the information exposed by netizens, after brand isolation, most users spend less than 6,543,800 yuan. Because of the large user base, this measure has a positive effect on guiding rational consumption and reducing personal debt leverage, and also has a demonstration effect on other similar products.

This is also in line with the requirements when the China Banking Regulatory Commission approved the opening of Ant Financial Services Company in June this year: flower buds and borrowing buds became the exclusive products of Ant Consumer Finance Company. Consumer credit issued by other financial institutions through the platform of Ant Group is no longer marked with names such as "Flower Garden" and "Borrowing Garden".

This means that flower beds and borrowing beds will operate under licenses with higher gold content and stricter supervision, such as Ant Financial Services. Services funded by financial institutions such as banks have also achieved independent operation on the ant platform. Yin Zhentao believes that before brand isolation, although flower shops and loan shops were also associated with banks, the outside world felt more like self-management. After brand isolation, the platform, technical orientation and boundary of ants are clearer.

Although the internal and external environment and emotions are changing, consumer credit still occupies a place in the positive development. The 20021working meeting of the people's bank of China made it clear that it is necessary to "ensure the financial innovation and development under the premise of prudent supervision, and steadily improve the service quality and competitiveness of inclusive finance". On the one hand, it means that innovative inclusive finance service is still a necessity of the current economy and society. On the other hand, the development of financial services must be steady and orderly, and haste makes waste. The "14th Five-Year Plan" clearly puts forward "standardizing the development of consumer credit", so the background of stricter supervision of consumer finance industry will not change.

Under this new normal, brand isolation is just the beginning, and there are still many things to do to spend money and borrow money. These things finally point to a proposition: finding the greatest common denominator between self-development and users, industries and society.

Related question and answer: Related question and answer: Just borrowing flowers? I believe that most people will get flowers and loan lines. Next, let's focus on flowers and loans!

Hua Bai is actually an online credit card. If you buy this month and pay it back next month, then borrowing is equivalent to a bank loan, but the interest is slightly higher than that of the bank, which is the aspect of long-term borrowing.

Many newly opened flower beds are 500 yuan's quota, while borrowing flowers is 2,000 yuan, and the daily interest is still15,000 yuan, which is equivalent to the interest of10.5 cents we talked about. The interest on borrowing 10,000 yuan a month is 150 yuan, which is ok for a short time, but it will be high for a long time, but the advantage is that it is convenient to use and the interest is reduced for you. The loan is 85,000 yuan, and the interest is 3,000 yuan (my sesame score is 74 1), which is equivalent to 1 1000 months of interest 90 yuan. I always lend it out for a short time. For example, the crowdfunding project I lent to my classmate is usually paid back in about a month, and the profit is almost 10. After I pay back the money, I pay back Alipay immediately, rarely in installments. It took almost a year. It turns out that online merchants and loans are 10000, and the interest is 15000. Finally, the loan was closed to me and all of it was transferred to the online merchant.

The key is to remember to pay back on time and bind your own things, such as credit card, real estate license, work unit and so on. , online, adding more friends with high sesame scores will also help push up the quota. There is also a repayment in installments, so that Alipay can also make money, so that everyone can make money. Money can't be earned by one person. Only when everyone earns it can money be earned.